The buxom ladies of Parnassus,
Are quite unlike our modern lasses,
Who are a race of sordid b-----s,
That prostitute their charms to riches:
Not so the gen'rous tuneful nine,
Who to a humble poet deign,
Their inspiration and their aid,
As well by day as night in bed;
From lame Claudero back to Homer,
They with the bards have dealt in honour;
Disdaining none, however poor,
Who whistled them unto their lure.
All hail! ye gentle ladies meek,
Who measure lines as poets speak,
Assist me now with queint excuse,
From going to a tipling house:
Tell Greenlaw, he's an old divine,
With empty pockets like to mine,
And that to fuddle without money,
Tastes more of aloes than the honey;
Prose beggars too, like those in verse,
May chance to get a kicked a&wblank;e.
If this sad fact does not prevail
To wean him from the gin and ale,
Next tell him, Claud is very busy,
And wedded to a wicked hussy,
Whose yelping brats absorb his store,
While the damn'd shrew still craves for more,
And that the plagues of human life
All centre in a cursed wife.
If such excuses will not do,
Then lastly tell what's surely true,
Claud has no money. -— There's the gust,
Nor knows an ale-wife that will trust.